


This wasn't the fun excursion I was promised...

by StormysHealthyCopingMechanisms



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Emotionally constipated Keith, I know they did it already but there wasn't enough advantage taken, I'm writing this because I need a feel!blanket right now, M/M, Technically a sequel, Work In Progress, all sci-fi requires a haunted ship episode, can probably read it without the previous, can't write a fic without actual conclusive gayness or it's a waste of time, if it's awful i'll stop, klance, pining lance, so I'm sorry it wasn't thought out
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2018-12-20 13:22:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11921793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormysHealthyCopingMechanisms/pseuds/StormysHealthyCopingMechanisms
Summary: Team Voltron investigate an abandoned ship with some questionable life signs on board. Lance is stuck in protective mode and Keith is stuck in limbo, and they're all stuck on a ship which could end up falling apart at any second. Is this enough to provoke actual romance?A sequel to Swim Down. I just want these poor traumatised kids to wind up together.*Edited*





	1. Ghost Ship Party

Keith stole the blanket.

It was the cold that woke Lance up several hours after he’d drifted off to sleep, and the realisation that his teammate was still next to him returned his clarity like a bucket of cold water. Keith had rolled into the blanket like a burrito, and Lance could only see half his forehead, a dash of dark eyebrow and his hair nested on the mattress (Lance still had the pillow to himself). He was still fairly contained on his side of the bed, at least. There was almost a foot of space between the two of them, except that Lance’s arm was flung casually across the empty mattress and he had no idea how to move it without risking waking his companion.

The idea that Lance had somehow managed to get Keith into bed (ha. ha.) was enough to make him want to cackle and cringe simultaneously. On the one hand, Keith would be furious and this would be hilarious. On the other, Keith would be furious and this would potentially be fatal.

This opened up entirely new avenues for making fun of him though. Jokes about him sleeping in Lance’s bed were guaranteed to be grade-A aggravation material. And it wasn’t as though Lance could get in trouble for it. He was just taking care of his fellow Paladin. Despite said Paladin being a dirty thief who stole other people’s warm blankets in the middle of the night.

Lance could try and take it back, but he wasn’t even that sleepy, any more. He’d napped after lunch, and it looked like it would only be an hour or so until everyone else would wake up.

He had to get up to pee, naturally, when the cold sank in, and by the time he’d returned Keith had claimed the pillow, and burrowed under it like a crazed mole-man.

‘No! No. Unacceptable. Bad manners.’ He bounced the bed slightly as he sat down, eliciting a small groan of protest. ‘Gimme my pillow, Satan.’

‘G’way…’

Shoving Keith, half-asleep or not, was never a risk to be taken lightly, so Lance opted for continuing to grumble as he stretched out on his side. ‘Share or you’re getting kicked out, asshole.’

Keith clumsily lifted one end of the pillow and shot Lance the filthiest glare he was probably able to muster through stray locks of hair and squinting sleep-glazed eyes. ‘The hell you want?’

‘Some of my bed back, thanks, princess.’ Lance built up the nerve to tug on the pillow, and to his surprise Keith relinquished it immediately. It appeared to surprise him that he wasn’t in his own bunk, but he didn’t argue when Lance shoved the pillow behind his own head and rolled onto his back. Keith was effectively trapped against the wall, anyway, and without climbing over Lance he wasn’t going anywhere.

Lance hadn’t forgotten his threat to leave. He was turning the conversation over in his head as Keith gradually untangled himself from the blanket and shook it out.

Kid still looked battle-worn and exhausted. Confused about where he was, but apparently not concerned enough to do anything about it, which came as something of a relief. Lance would still try and stop Keith leaving if he did get up. Until Lance knew for sure that there wasn’t a risk of losing him, he wanted Keith within sight at all times. He’d ask again in the morning, and if Keith persisted in being crazy, Lance would drag his ass straight over to Shiro.

Keith had given up half of the blanket, but he rolled onto his stomach and pulled his half over his head.

Not a friendly morning person. Lance snorted. Big shock.

‘How d’you feel?’ It was a little easier than usual to be so close to him, what with half a quintent of nursing behind them. Lance pressed the back of his hand to Keith’s temple with exaggerated exasperation.

‘Mm.’ Keith shrugged, fabric hissing slightly against fabric.

He went back to sleep pretty quickly, but it wasn’t as easy for Lance. He felt kind of wired, now he was awake. He couldn’t stop watching Keith sleep. His hair was getting long, now. Still awful as sin, but longer. Maybe eventually the mullet would grow out and it wouldn’t be such an abomination to the universe. But then Keith would have Rapunzel hair, and that would be… also terrible, probably.

Lance succumbed to the call of food and had to get up before Keith even stirred again.

 

 

 

Since Keith had been ill, Lance had been watching him, just… to make sure he was recovering. Coran insisted that the parasite was dead, so Keith would be fine. Stronger every day.

Lance was just… making sure.

It wasn’t long before Keith was back in the Black Lion, pursuing Lotor, and back on the training deck, taking his frustration out on innocent simulations.

So when Lance slipped into the empty control room a few quintents later, settled into his chair, and pulled up the security system, it wasn’t the first time. It wasn’t the first time he sat for more than a varga, mesmerised by the small figure moving across the screen, chewing his lip.

It was compulsive, really. He just kept reliving the morning Keith had been sick. The lingering anxiety that they could have lost him, that it could happen again, that Keith might still think leaving was a good idea… They hadn’t talked about it again. Lance had elbowed Keith the morning after, when he’d finally gotten up and come to get breakfast, and Keith had rolled his eyes.

‘Forget about it.’ He’d mumbled, and that was all he’d said.

But Lance couldn’t forget about it. Or stop thinking about it. Thinking about Keith. Fighting the urge to check on him whenever he was out of sight for any sustained period of time.

Which led to these sneaky sojourns into the control room, and watching every swipe and block and spin with rapt attention, wondering how Keith could maintain his poise so seamlessly between manoeuvres, regain his balance after every blow and hold his own against a robot probably half his size again.

'Yo, Lance.'

Lance hit the keypad so fast he nearly broke it.

Pidge was standing behind him, unblinking, mouth in a straight, unwavering line. 

'What are you doing?'

'Checking the perimeter!' Lance practically shouted, pointing at the blank monitor with unrestrained desperation. 'Making sure... The... The secure... Making sure the... We're... It's secure!'

Pidge pushed her glasses up her nose in a small, careful gesture. 'So... Spying on Keith again?'

Lance gaped indignantly and tried to protest, but he couldn't form a coherent sentence before Pidge had managed to navigate a path to the console and turn on the monitor, sending a huge image of Keith on the training deck across to the central projector. Lance leapt up as if he could somehow disguise the huge screen with his splayed armspan.

‘Forget it, Lance. We’ve got work to do.’ Pidge swiped aside the camera feeds and replaced them with a forward view of the star system. There was a dot, a blinking target in the distance. A bunch of Altean symbols cycling nearby.

‘What’s that?’ Lance queried breathlessly, keen to move on from the awkwardness. He trusted Pidge anyway, if not to keep this secret, then at least not to give a crap about it at all.

‘Distress signal.’ Pidge explained, squinting at the screen. ‘Trying to translate it now.’

Lance clambered to his feet, poking at the hologram depiction of the star system curiously.

‘That’s a ship!’ He observed gleefully. ‘A big one.’

‘Yup.’ Pidge tapped her keypad. ‘Some kind of heavy transport ship.’

One by one, the rest of the team filed in. Lance looked up every time the door opened. Allura, in her battle suit (always prepared), Shiro in his (Boy Scout, anyone?), Hunk, with a plateful of morsels (looking baffled), Coran, beaming with excitement (inappropriately eager), and finally, Keith. His hair was dripping on the shoulders of his jacket, like he’d just showered, but his bayard was still drawn. Lance had gotten used to the notion that Keith was always ready to fight. He was practically perfecting the art of keeping himself on an adrenaline high round the clock. If he wasn’t in battle, he was training, if he wasn’t training, he was arguing about something, if he wasn’t arguing about something, he was fuming, and if he wasn’t fuming… well, that literally just never happened.

Lance didn’t know when he deigned to sleep.

‘What’s the situation?’ Shiro cleared his throat. He looked like this little warning bell might have interrupted a nap. Or some hardcore navel contemplation.

‘The distress beacon indicates that the ship encountered a random neutrino burst and was unable to pull out of the effect zone in time. After the energy and navigation systems were compromised they struck a band of asteroids around this planet here… The beacon was launched about a quarter of a decapheeb ago.’

Lance opened his mouth and pondered what the hell that was supposed to mean, while Shiro spun on the team. ‘Alright, suit up.’

‘Isn’t it abandoned?’ Hunk ventured nervously. ‘It looks abandoned.’

‘Heavily damaged.’ Coran explained. ‘Hull breaches on decks 3 to 6, and 8. Seriously compromised structural integrity.’

‘Again… why are we… going?’

‘The Castle is picking up life signs aboard that ship.’ Pidge explained briskly. ‘Little further detail on what they may be, but… Defenders of the Universe, y’all.’

Lance didn’t fail to notice Keith’s faint smile in response.

‘Move out.’ Shiro commanded, and they all snapped into motion.

 

 

 

Keith was piloting the Black Lion. Lance was in Red, Allura in Blue. Pidge in Green and Hunk in Yellow, as usual. Shiro flew with Keith. They left the lions a short distance from the ship, and used their jetpacks to close the gap. Coran instructed them to leave their helmets active at all times. Five major hull breaches had been detected by the Castle, but they couldn’t be sure there weren’t minor breaches anywhere else, making oxygen levels unstable, and the ship had the potential to fall apart in a light breeze. Fortunately for them, there were no light breezes in space… just the tentative shifts of gravity in the asteroid belt.

Three of the breaches were on deck 6… Keith claimed that honour for himself. It was predictable. More structural damage, more risk, and Keith wasn’t about to order anybody else to go in there. Shiro insisted on taking 8, with a massive hole in the front quarter, even though it kind of got on Lance’s nerves that he wasn’t getting the right-hand spot. He hated to admit it, but it was important to him to show his loyalty to Keith. He respected Keith’s leadership, that was it. It was important that Keith knew that. Knew Lance was prepared to support him in the mission.

Lance argued his way into getting deck 3, which shared a breach spanning from deck 3 to deck 6, much everyone else’s apparent disinterest. So maybe Lance was overthinking it. But he’d prove himself, no doubt.

Pidge got deck 10, Hunk deck 9, and Allura deck 1. They were spreading out, trying to get the best coverage available to find what life forms they could. Pidge explained that there was static in the readings, which was why they couldn’t pinpoint the location of the living entities from outside the ship. They had to get in there, find out for themselves. Shiro ordered open comms. Keith ordered that everyone prepare for hostiles, which meant drawn weapons.

The power drain on the ship had been immense. Life support systems were only partially functional, and lighting, security and operations systems were in the red zone. Levels 1 to 6 were in the dark. 7 to 11 were on backup power, possibly degenerating. 10 was operations, and Pidge was left with the task of identifying the ship’s origin and mission.

Lance entered deck 3 through the airlock, and found himself in a dark, damaged corridor.He tried not to think about the way Pidge had said “again.” He tried not to think about what that suggested she knew.

It wasn’t like he couldn’t check up on Keith if he wanted to. It wasn’t even a bad thing. Keith needed checking on! He was probably still recovering, and now he was piloting the Black Lion they all needed to ensure they took care of him.

But seriously, the last thing Lance needed was for Keith to find out about his bad habits. He wasn’t ashamed of worrying, but Keith had an even shorter fuse than usual these days. Lance wasn’t trying to tiptoe around him or anything. He just… wanted to protect him. Which was probably stupid, because Keith could take care of himself. And that was exactly why Lance didn’t really want him to find out.

 

 

 

Deck 6 was in blackout. The exits had been sealed to stop decompression, so Keith had to enter through one of the breaches from outside the ship. There was a light attached to his helmet, so he could see a few metres out front, but there was a lot of debris in the way. Several of the internal walls had come down, with chunks of now-useless wiring swinging eerily across his path. He used his sword to push the obstacles out of his way.

Stopping for a side-mission during their pursuit of Lotor had not been Keith’s idea. But Allura and Shiro had pushed for the investigation of the ship. Life signs meant survivors, and Voltron couldn’t just abandon survivors. It took a lot of effort not to point out how well that had gone the first time they tried it, when Hunk had been eager to return to Shay and the Balmera as Rolo and his cronies had attempted to divert them.

It wasn’t that bad. Shiro was on the ground with them, giving orders, and Keith was just perusing an abandoned ship deck. He’d gotten the level which was least likely to hold survivors, so actual interaction was avoided, and he was planning on using this time to clear his head, stay quiet and hope the team continued reorienting themselves towards Shiro.

Because of the decompression problem, his boots were magnetised, which made the stroll down the deck corridor a bit of a workout. It was nice, though. Relaxing. Basking in the gentle background hum of the others making updates over the comms which didn’t require his responses.

Pidge was saying she couldn’t get a lock on the life forms yet, and in order to keep track of the team she needed to trace them through the comms system. Hunk was hesitating, suggesting that there were false readings. Shiro was trying to soothe him. Lance was repeating his vain hope that there was some attractive damsel on board he’d be given the opportunity to rescue… i.e. seduce.

Keith wasn’t thinking about any of it. The longer he could go without acknowledging any responsibilities beyond this dark, crowded hallway, the better.

Lance started narrating his future encounter with the lady-alien.

Keith wasn’t listening.

He wasn’t.

Hunk started humming nervously.

Keith climbed over a fallen ceiling beam.

Pidge reached operations control and began tapping at the computer and talking to herself, overcutting the other two.

Keith realised he was smiling slightly, simultaneously infuriated and amused by their antics. _His team_. He hated the idea. But he… liked the team.

Lance had been right. After he’d gotten sick, gotten better, gotten some sleep - everything had changed. Leaving Voltron for the Blade, it still made sense, but it was hard. Shiro was here, for starters, and of all people, Shiro was the last one Keith wanted to run away from. He owed Shiro. He owed him too much to be able to cut and run like some kid.

And then there was Allura and Coran, Alteans who had taken them in and had faith in Keith despite his… flaws. They’d never reacted to his outbursts the way his trainers at the Garrison had, and even Allura had eventually accepted the Galra part of him.

There was Hunk, who… well… he fed Keith, and that was pretty damn important. He was also amusingly neurotic, oddly affectionate and incredibly smart.

There was Pidge, who was the closest thing to a little sister Keith had ever wanted or needed. She was brilliant and sarcastic and as driven as Keith was.

And then…

Lance. Who was obnoxious. Unfoundedly egotistical. Loud-mouthed. Jealous. Insecure. Unspeakably inappropriate.

Smart. Funny. Enthusiastic.

Loyal. Kind. Compassionate.

Keith had been struggling to keep the memory of being sick out of his head. Most of that day was a blur, a messy, painful haze. But he remembered the irrational denial when he’d first been getting sick, and spikes of clarity through the next few vargas. Lance had always been there. He’d never taken a break. He’d never let go.

Every time Keith thought about it (which he tried not to) he felt a new uneasiness in the pit of his stomach. It was just like fear, but more childish than anything he’d felt for a long time. It was like there was a boogieman under his bed and if he acknowledged it, he’d wind up being dinner. It didn’t make any sense, because what Lance had done was nice. Really nice. And he’d done it for Keith, who he didn’t even like, which made it even more nice.

And… nice was pretty confusing, for Keith. Pretty unfamiliar. He certainly wasn’t very good at… being nice. He wasn’t particularly good at… receiving niceness, either.

And this wouldn’t even be a damn problem if he was still in Red, and he didn’t have to worry about being a leader and behaving appropriately for the role of the Black Paladin. Shiro was their leader. Shiro was good at stuff like that.

Keith lost his balance, tripping over a twisted floor grate which had buckled under the impact of another beam. He mumbled a curse.

‘Keith, you good?’

‘What’s up, Red?’

Keith flushed with annoyance, and answered both Shiro and Lance with a grunt of admission. There was that feeling again. He appreciated that Lance kept calling him Red, but he hated the spark of frustration it evoked. Was he the Red Paladin? Or the Black Paladin? Or was he not supposed to be a Paladin at all?

‘How’s it looking?’ Shiro continued. ‘Team?’

‘Deck 1 is quiet.’

‘Deck 3 is dark.’ Lance complained. ‘And gross.’

‘6 is clear.’

‘Deck 9 is empty. But creepy. Really creepy.’

‘Operations is functional… barely. This is a cargo ship. Transporting… organisms. It looks like it might have been a cattle ship of some kind? Don’t recognise the purveyors, running translation on their log right now.’

‘And nothing on deck 8 so far. Pidge, is it possible that we’re picking up life signs from loose… cattle?’

‘Most likely. All escape pods were launched within a couple vargas of the first burst. They lost navigation. Several subsequent bursts took out the life support systems and damaged the ship. They wouldn’t have been able to repair that much structural weakness without a support ship, so they just abandoned it.’

‘How’d anything survive?’ Lance cut in suddenly. ‘And what do we mean by cattle? Space cows? Are we looking for space cows?’

‘We’re not going to abandon any space-cows.’ Hunk added.

‘Not certain.’ Pidge continued drily. ’The closest translation is “specimens” but there’s no detail.’

‘Could be zoological specimens.’ Allura contributed.

‘Spaceship zoo?’ Lance interjected again, and Keith rolled his eyes silently. He was so damn loud.

’A research vessel.’ She corrected. ‘Transport to the planet of origin.’

‘But… spaceship zoo.’ He sounded so wounded Keith almost smiled.

’So what do we do if they are specimens?’ Shiro asked, over the sound of Hunk grunting with exertion, apparently negotiating an obstacle course.

‘We can’t leave them here.’ Pidge pointed out. ‘Life support is hanging by a thread.’

‘How long until it gives up?’ Hunk asked anxiously.

‘You’re in a space suit, Hunk.’ Pidge sighed. ‘And they’ll only fail if something stops the power core from regenerating.’

‘What?’ Lance’s voice squawked through the comms again, making Keith wince. ‘How’s that?’

‘If the ship takes any damage to the core.’ Pidge explained, her tone hinting of exasperation. ‘Then the systems fail. We would all be fine, obviously, because we’re suited up. But whatever else is onboard won’t be, unless they’re suited up too.’

‘The zoo animals?’ Hunk asked confusedly.

‘If they are zoo animals.’ Shiro said patiently. ‘We don’t know if any passengers or crew survived. Or what “specimens” really means.’

Keith didn’t know how Shiro managed to have so much patience. True, he had been struggling to see eye-to-eye with Shiro over the past few quintents. And it wasn’t helping him feel any more qualified to lead having Shiro countermanding him at every turn. But that just proved he didn’t have Shiro’s patience, or perspective, or whatever the hell it was that made him so good at suddenly commanding the most powerful weapon in the universe. There wasn’t a course for that kind of thing! And anyway, Keith’s track record with receiving training was about as good as the track record of a rabid hyena receiving training. The only people he’d respected enough to take orders from during his life had been his parents, his grandparents, one third-grade _kendo_ sensei and Shiro. It was troubling that he didn’t have the same faith in Shiro’s advice right now… but that could have just been his own head, torn in different directions by the longing for revenge and the desire to protect his team- _the_ team.

There was a lull in the conversation, and in the silence Keith noted the sound of Hunk breathing, Pidge typing, Shiro’s footsteps and…

He couldn’t hear Lance. He couldn’t hear the usual inane narration, the sound of him humming the Mission: Impossible theme song, the sound of him swinging his rifle. Keith couldn’t pick out any Lance noise at all through the other mess of sounds.

He hesitated, and pushed one of the half-open doors with his sword. It was pitch black inside, but the torch illuminated a small array of bent and warped steel. Looked like an abandoned mess hall, but smaller. Everything metal.

Creepy. He withdrew, refocused on the comms. Breathing. Typing. Footsteps. The energy buzzing off Allura’s bayard. Where the hell was Lance?

He didn’t want to speak. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself.

He opened his mouth. Closed it again. Open. Closed. Poked another door, found another empty room.

Cleared his throat. ‘Uh… Lance, what’s your status?’

He might have imagined the faintly surprised silence of the others, morphing into concern as the query went unanswered.

‘Lance, do you copy?’ Shiro repeated.

‘Lance?’ Hunk added, obviously worried.

Finally, Lance responded, in an unfamiliarly soft tone. ‘Guys… there’s… something… here…’

Keith froze, watching the blade of his bayard glimmer in the torchlight. _Shit_.

‘What is it?’ Hunk whispered.

‘Lance, what do you see?’ Shiro asked. ‘Lance? Is it hostile?’

No answer.

‘Pidge-’ Keith lifted a hand to his helmet, mentally trying to cut out the others' voices. ‘Lance’s location relative to mine?’

‘Uh, three decks down, about five corridors across, but your exits are sealed. You can’t reach him.’

‘The breach goes from 6 to 3, right?’

‘Lance is in a sealed zone. Life support’s online where he is.’

‘I’m going down there.’ Keith said bluntly, speeding up. He’d come in through the first breach, a rip near the front of the ship where a small asteroid had punctured the hull, but he’d have to keep going to get to the really big one.

‘Lance, come in.’

‘Pidge, are there any life signs near him?’ Keith snapped, irritated in spite of himself. _Let’s all go and investigate the abandoned ship. Let’s split up. Let’s find the nice space-cows_. And Lance was _never_ quiet. It was _impossible_.

‘I’m trying to reduce the static. I don’t know for sure.’

Keith hurdled a chunk of twisted metal in his path and kept sprinting. Shiro was telling everyone to remain calm. Could be a comms problem. Could be some intervening rubble. Could be Lance being a dick. Keith ducked under a swinging cable.

‘Keith, take a left.’ Pidge instructed. ‘Not rubble. His signal’s reading clear. He’s not talking.’

‘Dammit.’ Keith hissed, but in a few ticks he was skidding to a stop. He could feel his feet lifting from the floor as the gravity generators failed this close to the breach, only his magnetisers holding him down.

It was dark inside, dark outside, but the floor split apart just in front of his boots, opening in a massive scar leading from where he stood all the way through the outer shell of the ship.

He could jump out, and use his jetpack to try and find a way into the third deck from outside. Or he could jump straight down, into the dark, and potentially impale himself on the way.

‘Keith-‘ Shiro’s voice interrupted him warningly.

’Deck 3 is breached internally?’ He spoke over Shiro, wincing internally.

‘Yes, Keith, but-’ Pidge faltered. ‘I just lost Lance’s location. His comms are dead.’

Keith swore, and jumped.

 

 

 

He fired the jetpack once, mistaking a slab of flooring warped over a crossbeam for the landing zone. The burst of momentum threw him into something, and he couldn’t get his bearings in time to fire it again. He landed on his back. Hard.

‘Keith?’ Shiro’s voice, a little more faint than before.

‘Did he make it?’ Hunk, panic.

Keith couldn’t hear much over his own wheezing. He rolled onto his knees and tried to sit up, groaning. ‘Made it.’

‘Keith, I might be able to hack the security mainframe and open a door for you, but you gotta be fast. And watch out for debris.’

Keith groaned again, hauling himself upright. ‘Do it.’

He forced his breathing into a steady rhythm, and started to run.

There was a compression sealed door at the other end of the corridor. Pidge counted him down, and Keith used the jetpack to launch himself forward, battling the outrush of air as it opened. He swung to dodge a chunk of door which whipped past him, and nearly missed the mark, scraping the frame as the door slid shut behind him. He hit the floor and rolled, pushing into a crouch and activating his bayard as the torchlight swung across a familiar view. Similar internal damage… dangling ceiling plates and dents in the walls. Lance’s earlier comment made sense now, though. Deck 3 had the added bonus of a faint rising dampness, moisture dripping down the walls, and a peculiarly repugnant smell.

‘Pidge.’

’Go straight. Take your fourth left, and then go right. That was his last location.’

Keith could hear the strain in her voice. He admired Pidge, he really did. Her fortitude was boundless.

‘Keith, what do you want us to do?’ Shiro asked suddenly. Keith felt the last remnants of his former relaxation evaporate. He couldn’t give Shiro orders. It felt… wrong. But it hadn’t been his idea to split up the team in the first place. If they hadn’t done that, maybe Lance wouldn’t be in trouble right now.

‘Hunk, head up to Pidge. Allura and Shiro, come to deck 3 and meet up. Everyone stick together ’til we find out what’s going on.’

 _Too damn late_. If anything had happened to Lance, Keith was going to wreak havoc on this godforsaken ship. He owed Lance. Practically everything.

He kicked a chunk of metal out of his way, identifying it as a piece of a door control panel. It didn’t look like there were many doors left to control on this deck, anyway. They were all either gone or busted beyond repair, opening onto huge cavernous rooms. Keith didn’t have time to stop and poke his nose in, but he was starting to kick himself. Lance was clearly on the “containment” deck of the spaceship. And literally nothing seemed to have been contained. Which meant he’d put Blue (Red?) in the most dangerous place out of all of them, when he’d been specifically trying to keep him out of trouble.

Well, not specifically. There wasn’t anything specific about it. If it had happened to cross his mind that Lance should have been safe on a dead level where the idiot couldn’t get sucked out into space… well, so what?

‘Left, Keith.’

Keith wasn’t doing much to cover himself. If something wanted to jump out of the shadows at him, so be it. If it had so much as looked sideways at Lance, he was all too happy to put it down. He was jogging, breathing heavily, swiping things out of the way with his sword.

‘Right.’ Pidge added. ‘Now stop.’

Keith stopped, and turned his light. He was at the centre of another corridor. There was a doorway a few metres ahead of him, probably worth checking out. There wasn’t anything fallen in his path, so Lance wasn’t hiding anywhere. He swept the light in a circle. Another doorway, a few paces behind him. A broken cable hanging from the ceiling led his gaze to the dark spaces overhead, but he couldn’t make out any other way to get up there, or any reason why Lance would even bother.

‘Pidge, how long ago did you lose him?’ He asked roughly, swinging the light between the two doorways.

‘About three dobashes… but Keith, he was right there. You should be right on top of him.’

There was a noise overlaying the last part of her sentence, but Keith realised quickly that it wasn’t over comms. Something was moving further down the corridor. Something big. Or incredibly clumsy.

He tightened his grip on the bayard, stepped forward and crouched, and took a deep breath.

‘Lance? That you?’

The noise got louder and something pale flashed at the very edge of the light, but before Keith even had an opportunity to register how very much it was not Lance, he was being pulled backwards, unbalanced by something latching on to the back of his armour and kicking his legs out from underneath him.

 


	2. Better run through the jungle...

He toppled rather than fell, landing on something surprisingly soft which emitted a gentle “oof”. Before he could react (loudly and violently was his first plan) he was tipped onto his side, a metal grate went sliding overhead, pinning him under the floor, and he saw the blue gauntlet out of the corner of his eye and hissed ‘Lance!’

‘Shhh…’ Keith felt Lance’s arms wind around his stomach and chest as he started to move, and instinctively went still. They were lying in what must have been service space between the walkway grating and what felt like pipes under Keith’s arm. It clearly wasn’t designed for hide and seek, because the front of his helmet was basically scraping the side, and he had to fold his legs to fit them in. More alarmingly, he was wedged so close to Lance that they were tangled together, especially with Lance’s arms wrapped around him. He could feel the front of Lance’s armour sliding against the back of his own, as well as one of Lance’s legs shoved between his own.

Despite the warning, Keith was about to protest this closeness when whatever had been making noise in the corridor arrived above them. He would have moved to switch off his light, but Lance’s grip tightened suddenly, pre-empting the motion.

Whatever it was, it was big. And a kind of translucent white, with filmy flesh which made Keith’s skin crawl.

He felt his own breathing pick up, feeling exposed and infuriatingly nervous. The rise and fall of his chest crushed Lance’s arms into the side of the hole. At least his bayard was lying along the length of his leg, but he couldn’t move his wrist enough to angle it upwards.

The thing moved, rotating a section of barely visible, hovering body over their hiding place. Keith felt fear rise from the pit of his stomach, wondering if Lance was hiding because he was injured, because this thing had hurt him. It turned again, and claws, or feet, or whatever it had attached to his legs made loud clanking noises where they hit the metal floor. It looked sort of like a spider, combined with some kind of horrifying, pulsating larval insect or deep-marine monster.

‘Keith? What’s happening?’

The sound of Shiro’s voice over the comms was startlingly loud, but Keith still flinched when the creature above them slammed a limb into the grate a few inches from his helmet. It didn’t have feet or claws, just long spidery legs ending with a spiked stub.

He couldn’t bring himself to answer Shiro, even though it seemed like they were already screwed. The alien jabbed at the grate with another leg, and another, and another, and all of them were directed at Keith’s head. The metal was holding, for now, and the spikes only reached an inch or so through the holes in the grate before they were too broad to fit, but there was no telling how strong a creature that big was likely to be, or how prone to problem-solving behaviours.

‘Keith, dammit, come in!’

‘Oh my god, we lost Keith!’

Another slam of a leg, and Lance dragged one of his arms free just to throw it across the side of Keith’s helmet, blocking the spike from reaching him. The different noise, the scrape of Lance’s armour, sent the thing into an even more violent, screeching frenzy. There was something (potentially saliva) dripping onto the grate, through the gaps onto the two of them. Keith still couldn’t move, lack of space combined with Lance’s grip, but he felt a surge of relief as Lance’s gloved fingers killed the communication signal from his helmet, and everything went quiet bar the racket from the alien.

It was obvious the creature knew they were there, and it wasn’t giving up any time soon. Keith tried to roll over and get his arms loose, despite Lance’s apparent unwillingness. It left him slightly tilted, one of his shoulders heavy against Lance’s chest, the other dipped in toward the wall, and the feel of Lance along the entire length of his back. Not that it was distracting, or anything, but it was incredibly inconvenient. Lance’s arm was still lying across his stomach, and his legs were tucked awkwardly to the side to help them both fit. Keith deactivated his bayard and folded his arm up, squashing it as close to his chest as possible to avoid being stabbed from above. One spike glanced off his wrist, and he winced involuntarily, but it just scratched his gauntlet and withdrew.

With his wrist folded uncomfortably under his chin, and the bayard angled up, Keith waited. The grate hadn’t started to dent yet, but _Christ_ , this thing wasn’t giving up. Lance moved, sliding completely onto his back and propping both his elbows on the ground, palms pointed up.

Despite the possibility of imminent impalement on the spikes of this horror-beast, Keith could feel heat creeping up his spine. Even though they were trapped, this still felt unnervingly intimate, and Keith was… just… not prepared… for it. Lance’s pelvis was just below Keith’s backside, and his forearms were tight to either side of Keith’s breastplate.

He felt Lance crane his neck, and heard him mumble, drawing the wrath of the alien towards his head. ‘Ready? 3… 2… 1… _Now!_ ’

Lance threw both his hands up, jerking the grate out of position, and sliding it downwards. Keith activated his bayard at the same time, and even as a spike shot down towards them, the point of his sword pierced the belly of the beast, and he shoved it upwards with all the force he could muster. Lance’s arm hit his back, throwing his weight behind Keith’s strength, and the tip of the blade ripped through the creature’s back. It made a noise only describable as a howl, and pitched sideways, jerking and writhing.

Keith couldn’t move much, pinned by the weight on the sword, so Lance crawled out of the pit first, ducking underneath the swiping limbs of the dying spider. He grabbed Keith’s arms and pulled, half dragging him out of the hole and to his feet. Keith wouldn’t relinquish his grip on the sword, not until the spider had stopped twitching entirely, and then he gingerly pulled it free.

The corridor had gone mostly silent, still lit with the cold white light of Keith’s helmet torch, filled with the sound of their heavy breathing.

‘Shit.’ Lance said finally, and Keith turned to face him. They were both standing on the opposite side of the pit to the dead alien, poised in case it moved again. ‘Well. That was a horrifying nightmare. We should go, though, I think there are more.’ He was still catching his breath, making his voice oddly uneven, but after a moment he lifted one hand to his breastplate and adjusted it nervously, inadvertently drawing Keith’s attention to the spiderweb of cracks around a small dark indent under his shoulder.

‘It got you.’ Keith said sharply, feeling strangely betrayed.

‘It’s fine.’ Lance said quickly, and Keith heard his voice return to normality with relief. ‘It’s just broken the armour. It didn’t get the suit.’

‘Are you okay?’ Keith continued, possibly a little overbearing. There was adrenaline thrumming in his veins, blood pulsing in his ears. He couldn’t stop staring at Lance’s face, dimly lit in the torchlight but startlingly intense. _Oh_. _Ohhh_.

Lance nodded, but Keith could see his gaze flickering down the hall through his helmet. ‘I’m good. Those things are blind, y’know? Killer hearing. Couldn’t get away from it without radio silence. I, ah… I dropped my bayard.’ He sounded so reluctant to admit it that Keith almost felt bad for him.

‘Ok.’ Keith shrugged slightly, shooting another look at the spider and wiping some alien-spit off his shoulder. ‘Whereabouts?’

 

 

 

Lance led the way, picking through the dark cautiously with his own light turned on. Keith turned his comms back on, catching the tail end of some babbled excitement as Pidge saw his signal return.

‘Keith? Keith, are you there?’

‘I’m here.’ He followed Lance through a doorway. ‘Lance is here, too. He had to cut comms because the things down here track via sound.’

‘The _things_?’ Hunk sounded predictably freaked. ‘We thought you were dead!’

‘They’re… spider-things. We had to kill one because it -‘ He cut himself off, grimacing, as he stood in a wet mushy puddle of something sticky. ‘-eugh.’

‘What?’ Hunk squeaked.

‘Keith, I’m on 6. I can jump down to you, but Allura has no path up from deck 1.’ Shiro interrupted sharply.

‘We’re fine, for now.’ Keith brushed off his concern. ‘You should try to get to Allura. We don’t know how many more of these things there are, and they seem aggressive.’

‘What’s the plan?’ Allura asked, voice smooth but unmistakably worried.

‘We’re ditching this deck.’ Keith explained. ‘Looks like it was cargo. Don’t think we’re gonna find anything friendly here. We’ll jump out and get up to the deck 10 airlock.’

‘I’ll keep trying to clear this static.’ Pidge interjected. ‘Sweep for bio-readings.’

‘Is Hunk with you?’

‘Yup. Good call, Keith. Nice, cosy, safe operations centre.’ Hunk contributed.

Lance’s light swung across Keith’s line of sight, and he made a quick gesture across his throat with a hand. Keith couldn’t hear anything over the sound of the others talking, but he hissed a quick “Going dark.” and switched off his helmet again.

He motioned for Lance to keep scouting for his bayard, and pivoted towards the door, trying to avoid standing in another weird puddle. He wondered silently if that was more alien drool. He could hear movement in the distance now, something clattering in a far corridor or another room. Lance moved suddenly, and Keith glanced over, watching him pick up the blue bayard and punch the air victoriously. Keith suppressed an answering smile.

Lance started gesturing animatedly, waving his hands around with no apparent meaning. Keith squinted at him, always amused by this particular habit.

Frustration made Lance fidget closer, until he was within arm’s reach. He whispered. ‘We should go back.’

Keith shrugged, watching Lance blink with the light in his eyes.

He wanted to ask again if Lance was okay. He wanted to be… nice. Didn’t know how, without it being unnatural.

Still, the sooner the two of them got out of here, the better.

Lance activated his bayard, lifting the rifle up and moving out in front. Keith followed him, watching his step to try and keep their noise to a minimum. Left. Then right, then straight on. The noise behind them was increasingly loud. Whether the alien could hear them or not, it was getting closer, and it was moving fast.

 _Shit_. Keith needed the comms to talk to Pidge to get the sealed door open. He was about to lift his hand to his helmet when Lance skidded to a stop next to another passage and swung round to grab his arm.

‘I-’

‘Come on!’ Lance was forcing himself to be quiet, but Keith could have sworn he heard the thing behind them speed up. They both started sprinting along the new route, dropping discretion in favour of straight up bolting. Lance’s fingers were still curled around Keith’s arm, and they were pretty much pulling even. Lance was taller, but Keith was more quick on his feet and he wasn’t weighed down with a rifle.

Keith heard the spider skitter round the corner behind them, and swore.

As it was, their situation left a lot to be desired. Lance was scanning the walls as they ran, searching for somewhere to hole up behind a functioning door, but a sudden jolting movement of the ground underneath them knocked him off balance and he tripped. Keith, probably due to a lower centre of gravity, stumbled but caught himself.

‘Lance-’

Lance raised his rifle and fired back down the corridor as the ghostly skin of the spider glinted into view. It seemed to evade the energy blasts with ridiculous ease for something so large, scooting up and running along the wall. Keith felt like swearing again. Loudly. Instead, he focused his attention on hauling Lance (still-firing) back to his feet, just in time for them both to be thrown against the nearest wall by the another toss of the floor.

‘The hell is that?’ Lance yelped.

Keith shook his head, uncertain. More asteroids, maybe. Or the ship finally splitting apart at the seams like it had been threatening to do since they’d arrived.

The spider-alien seemed unfazed, although it slowed as it got closer. Keith could see that the skin stretched unbroken over the entire body, apparently lacking eyeballs or ears. He wondered where the mouth was, and immediately regretted it. The last one had drooled, so maybe the face was on the underside of the body, like a stingray. Though, Lance had said they were blind, so maybe they didn’t have any eyeballs at all.

Lance was still shooting at it, but the thing dodged every time. Keith activated his shield and grabbed the back of Lance’s arm.

‘We need to go.’

‘Yuh-huh, you think?’

Keith pulled, Lance fired, and the damn thing got closer.

‘In here-’ Keith jerked Lance behind him, through a doorway, and lifted his shield in time to feel a leg stab at him viciously. Lance fired a shot over Keith’s shoulder, prompting the thing to back up a few metres out of caution, and yanked the back of his armour, dragging him into the room.

They barely managed to force the door closed before the spider was throwing itself against the metal. Jabbing limbs searched for a gap between door and wall.

‘Can we barricade it?’ Lance asked breathlessly, and Keith shook his head.

‘It’ll slide the door no matter what stick in front of it.’

‘Then we should find somewhere to hide.’

Keith didn’t like the word “hide”. He never had… but at this point it was hiding or being impaled and possibly consumed by an alien monster… so… damn.

There were objects in the room - some kind of tower, ropes dangling from the ceiling, overturned blocks - but most significantly, the floor seemed to rise and fall in random sections. Keith started forward, scanning the area they were moving into as the spider continued to batter the door.

‘Watch the floor, Red.’ Lance warned softly. ‘Looks like it’s gonna collapse any second.’

Keith nodded, but Lance mustn’t have seen it, because a moment later his hand landed on the back of Keith’s armour. Keith took the opportunity to switch on his comms again, and discovered that he was receiving nothing but static.

‘Comms are out.’ He muttered uneasily. Lance’s fingers tightened, his weight tugging Keith back gently.

Keith reached an incline in the surface of the floor, where pressure had split a fault line in the metal and driven one edge high and the other low. Lance helped push him to the crest, and he balanced there for a moment, inspecting the jump down. It wasn’t far, but there was a gaping black hole between the two metal edges and Keith wasn’t sure, but it seemed to open onto a void. His light wasn’t hitting anything down there. Lance popped up next him and glanced down.

‘Must go all the way to deck 2.’ He observed, frowning. ‘There’s nothing in there at all.’

He leaned forward slightly, and Keith seized his arm with instinctive caution. Lance flashed a grin over his shoulder, brilliant even through the tint of his helmet visor.

‘Ladies first.’ He prompted, motioning to the other chunk of metal. Keith rolled his eyes, but jumped anyway. It wasn’t far, and it wasn’t a long drop, but he landed in a crouch to keep himself steady.

He ignored Lance’s repeat of the process, taking a few steps forward and scoping out their new territory. It didn’t seem like there was anything in the room with them, but he wasn’t keen to take any chances.

He heard Lance straighten up and stretch, probably smirking. ‘Should’ve been a gymnast. I’m naturally flexible, y’know? Destined for- _Agh!_ ’

Keith spun around, hearing a crack like a gunshot and for a moment thinking Lance had vanished completely, but he was on the ground, sliding towards the hole in the floor with terrifying speed.

‘KEITH!’

Keith responded by lunging forwards, fastening a hand around Lance’s raised wrist. He landed on his knees, and was instantly jerked forward as Lance’s legs disappeared into the darkness. His weight wasn’t enough to stop Lance from falling. If he held on, they’d both drop.

‘GET IT OFF MEEEE-’

Keith was being wrenched along on his knee guards, but he lifted his head enough to see the thick coil of tentacle around Lance’s waist. Lance had grabbed his arm with both hands, but he didn’t have the strength to pull him away from whatever was down there. He raised his sword and cleaved downwards, blindly striking the metal next to Lance’s hip, and the swing destabilised him, pulling him off balance. He released Lance’s arm, hoping the idiot would be smart enough to keep holding on, and snatched at the armour around his neck, trying to get purchase on something. He was tipping forward, but he had a better angle now, and he used it to slice clean through whatever ropey limb was trailing away into the hole on the other side of Lance’s ribs.

Lance yelped and suddenly he was scrambling forwards, grabbing Keith’s upper arm, then his shoulder, then his other arm as he got his knees on the ground and Keith started to sit up. The chunk of dismembered alien fell from his waist and dropped to the floor, still moving, and Keith felt him shudder.

Keith forced himself to his feet, pulling Lance with him, and backed up pronto. He couldn’t hear anything but the disturbing sound of meat flip-flopping wetly on the floor.

Keith kept backing up until he hit a wall (the side of some enormous monster cubby) and then he slid down it, watching the distant split in the floor for any sign of movement. Lance followed suit, so close Keith could feel their arms pressing together and Lance’s hip against his waist. Lance was still shuddering at intervals, like he was trying to shake off the memory of what had just happened. Keith slung an arm around his shoulders uncertainly and pulled him over into a firm hug.

‘I _hate_ this ship.’ He moaned emphatically, curving into Keith’s chest like he was meant to be there.

‘This isn’t a ship.’ Keith answered grimly. ‘This is a goddamn Stephen King novel.’

He felt rather than heard Lance huff a laugh. He didn’t know what had motivated him to hug his teammate, but it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. He didn’t want to let go, and Lance didn’t seem particularly keen to escape, so he let it linger, waiting for the adrenaline burst to wear off.

Things between him and Lance were different now, anyway. For sure, they’d probably never be friends. At the very most they’d only ever be… grudgingly respectful teammates.

And occasionally relieved to the point of affection in the evasion of death, apparently, but so what?

There was still the clanging of spider vs. door in the near distance, but fatigue was seeping into Keith’s thoughts as the adrenaline ebbed away.

‘You okay?’ Keith asked roughly, nudging the shoulder of Lance’s suit.

Lance nodded slightly, head tipped down towards the floor. ‘I think I’d like to leave, now, to be honest. I don’t like it when the seafood tries to eat me.’

Keith chuckled softly, and wished he could rub his eyes. ‘Shocker. Problem is, we’ve got inmate number one blocking the door, and apparently no other exits except for the loving embrace of inmate number two.’

Lance grunted a particularly vehement curse which Keith _knew_ he only said because Shiro wasn’t listening.

‘And no way to call for help.’ Lance added bitterly. His shoulder was against Keith’s chest, and his head was dipped into Keith’s arm, and he seemed completely comfortable about being there, despite being twisted over Keith’s lap. Keith thought their roles might have been reversed when he’d been sick, but the memories were fairly blurry. He considered himself so incapable of processing the situation that he wasn’t even going to try. Instead, he tapped Lance’s armour thoughtfully.

‘Maybe it’s my helmet.’ He suggested. ‘Try yours.’

‘Mine’s not working.’ Lance reported, without moving. Keith frowned.

‘How’d you know?’

‘I’m… extrapolating from the evidence.’ Lance sighed theatrically. Keith’s frown deepened. Why was he suddenly being an ass? Was Lance terminally incapable of not picking a fight for longer than a few dobashes?

‘What evidence?’

Lance sighed again, and sat up, lifting his head and turning to look Keith in the eye.

’The _fu-_ ’

‘Hit the floor.’ Lance admitted reluctantly. ‘Didn’t think it would be so flimsy.’

The visor of his helmet had a shatter point, a few minuscule cracks spreading from one central impact zone. Keith had no idea that was even possible, and the force with which he must have hit the ground for that to happen was seriously concerning. Probably just as concerning as the possibility that Lance’s suit was no longer airtight.

‘Give me that.’ Keith demanded abruptly, reaching for the helmet. Lance scowled and shoved him away.

’No! Leave it alone, you weirdo.’

‘Give me the helmet.’

‘Why? Go away. Stop it.’ Lance must have known why. There was no way in hell Keith was gonna risk having him in a faulty helmet when this hellship finally collapsed. He swatted at Keith’s hands rudely and stuck out his tongue. ‘Use your own damn helmet.’

‘Swap with me.’ Keith insisted angrily.

‘No!’ Lance elbowed his hand away and nearly fell on his back. ‘This is mine, get lost.’

‘I’m the Black Paladin-’ Keith snapped, glaring. ‘- and I’m ordering you to give it to me.’

Lance snorted with enough derision to take down a large rhinoceros. ‘Get stuffed, Darth Vader, it’s not gonna happen.’

Keith shot him the most critical look he could manage and rocked back against the wall. ‘Screw you.’ Still tentatively holding the sides of his helmet, Lance settled down next to him. ‘You hit your head?’

’Nah not really.’ Lance replied cheerfully. ‘Plenty of cushioning or whatever I guess.’

‘I guess brain damage isn’t such a big concern with you.’ Keith retorted, still frustrated, and Lance winced.

‘Ouch.’ He punched Keith’s arm. ‘Quit sulking and think of a way out, then, dick.’

Keith fumed quietly and, against his own wishes, obeyed. The risk to Lance had just doubled. Even if the helmet wasn’t already completely compromised, exposure to space, atmospheric pressure changes within the ship, combat, motion, any number of things could further the damage enough to render it useless. And Keith couldn’t allow Lance to leave himself exposed to additional danger. That was poor leadership. The problem was… all of their escape routes required some space time. Unless…

‘D’you think the others are okay?’ Lance ventured finally, the faintness of his voice hinting at the depth of his worry.

‘Yeah.’ Keith tried to sound more confident than he felt. _Go new Black Paladin, failing to properly lead yet another mission_. ‘They were grouping up, so nobody should be alone.’

He really hoped Shiro had found a way to reach Allura. If deck 2 was housing some kind of giant tentacled monster, then instructing her to make her way up to meet Shiro had been an awful idea, even if she hadn’t been able to make it.

‘You should try calling Red.’ Keith suggested slowly. He felt Lance shift next to him, still close enough that they were leaning against one another.

‘Uh… I don’t really feel like she’s in earshot.’ He said hesitantly.

‘You don’t need to feel it, really. Just call out- in your head.’

‘Maybe you should do it…’

‘She responds to you, Lance. Trust her.’ Keith found himself squeezing Lance’s shoulder in an attempt to be reassuring, and wondered what the hell was happening to him. Oh _Christ_ , maybe he really was turning into Shiro…

That would be… horrifying.

After a few moments of silence Lance groaned and sat back. ‘Nope. Not working. Nothing. Nada.’

‘You need to-’

Lance gave up guarding his helmet and pulled it off entirely, tucking it under the arm furthest from Keith’s clutches. Keith cut himself off and tried not to voice his aggravation. They were under strict instructions not to remove their helmets, but naturally Lance would have to be a berk about it.

‘Either wear it or give it to me.’ He ground out through clenched teeth, and when Lance glanced at him he hissed and pulled off his own helmet, laying it face up in his lap so he could still see.

There was a trail of blood from Lance’s scalp to his neck, close to his hairline and over his temple. The cut didn’t look too deep, but the gradually swelling bruise around it looked reasonably daunting.

‘You said-‘ He interrupted himself with an eye-roll. ‘Is your head… okay?’

Lance nodded, meeting his gaze steadily.

‘She’s your Lion, Keith. Always will be.’

‘No.’ Keith felt fear bubble up through his stomach and tried not to grimace. ‘Not anymore.’

‘You.’ Lance’s expression was so sincere (and distressed) that Keith didn’t really have the heart to argue. ‘Have to stop thinking like that.’

Keith scoffed, then took a deep, settling breath. ‘Y’know… you’re the perfect Red Paladin.’ It practically makes him cringe to say it, especially with Lance’s wide eyes staring at him from the gloom. Lance made a disbelieving noise in the back of his throat and continued to stare. Keith clenched a fist and forced himself to speak. ‘You’re fast, strong… you strategise independently… but you think of the team. You’re not undermining the others.’

Lance’s fingers closed around his wrist, and if it was possible, he actually got closer.

’ _You’re_ not undermining _anything_.’ Lance protested, voice squeaking (probably because he was lying). ‘You’re a good leader.’

‘Shiro doesn’t think so.’ Keith said bitterly, and wished he hadn’t.

Lance moved, and his hand squeezed Keith’s carefully. ‘That’s not true.’ He spoke much more softly, and Keith felt the back of his neck prickle slightly. He was _not_ blushing. He shrugged forcibly, but didn’t try and dislodge Lance’s hand.

‘I feel like he’s telling me to lead… but he’s also telling me I’m not able to do it, y’know?’

‘You can do it. You’re doing everything you can-’

‘What if I’m not?’ Keith interrupted sharply, and Lance went quiet. Keith saw his gaze flicker down and up again.

‘Aren’t you?’ He murmured.

Keith turned his head so he was looking directly at Lance. ‘You know how they say people can’t change?’

‘Yeah…’

‘I think they can. If they want to. But-’ Lance was listening to him, head tipped back so his hair was squashed against the wall, and his lips were slightly parted. Keith felt his stomach turn over. ‘-I don’t want to. I am who I am. I’m not a leader. I want to be myself.’

His gaze scraped over Lance’s face, the blood dribbling down his cheek and the honest to god little smirk he’s got just hearing Keith’s stupid opinion.

‘I like being… impulsive.’ He curved a hand under Lance’s chin and pressed his lips to Lance’s as gently as he’s able to.


	3. Stick that on your grill and barbecue it...

Keith jerked back, and caught a glimpse of Lance’s dazed expression as his eyes fluttered open. _Shit_. He looked- That was a-

There was a KSSSSSSH-BANG! as the door ripped open, and both of the Paladins snapped to the alert. Lance swung his rifle into position, and Keith sprang into a defensive crouch. His lips were warm from the kiss, and it simultaneously charged the darkness around him with electricity and reminded him that his helmet was on the floor by his knee.

They could hear the spider rather than see it, and it sounded big and pissed and like it was coming directly at them.

Lance’s fingers knocked the helmet, spinning it to face forwards, leaving them with a circle of light reaching the ominous black scar in the surface of the floor where he’d fallen. Keith swallowed instinctively, staring blindly into the dark as the scratching, skittering noise of the spider approached.

A pale, disarmingly unobtrusive leg appeared at the very edge of the light. Keith felt Lance’s arm lift as he sighted it. He sucked in a breath.

Another leg appeared, and the edge of a hovering, translucent body. Keith cringed.

It crawled into view, and both of them went taut, silent, waiting…

Without warning, something moving too fast to properly see whipped into view, snagged around the disturbing spider-monster, and unceremoniously dragged the shuddering, twitching creature across the floor and into an abyss.

Keith stayed frozen, adrenaline coursing through his veins, muscles painfully tense, and his brain still struggling to process what he’d just seen. Next to him, the barrel of Lance’s rifle dipped slowly until it hit the floor, weighed down by gravity and Lance’s apparent horror.

‘Did that…’ Lance’s voice was high-pitched with distress. ‘… just happen?’

Keith couldn’t summon a response.

The rifle dissipated into bright light and vanished, leaving them in silence, and Keith felt Lance’s hand tug at his arm, pulling his sword down.

‘You okay, man?’

Keith felt like a statue. He kept searching the dark for the incoming monster. Lance’s fingers brushed his chin, turning his head, and before he could muster a sensible line of thought, Lance was kissing him.

The tension seeped from his body, and he leaned slackly into Lance’s grip. Really, his plans for today were falling apart at the seams in the most spectacular of ways… although given his history with “making plans” it wasn’t exactly unexpected.

A hand tangled in his hair, pulling him closer. Lance’s lips were soft and full. He kissed better than Keith had expected, _(imagined)_ , and it wasn’t the same symbolic action Keith had been using to express himself. It felt… nicer. Warmer. It made butterflies tremble in his stomach, it made heat spiral to his fingertips and toes. He felt like an instrument in the hands of an expert. He hadn’t expected…

He hadn’t expected Lance to reciprocate his gesture.

That wasn’t why he’d done this, in the first place. He’d done it to prove that he was what he was, he felt what he felt. He didn’t belong as leader, when he couldn’t even displace his own juvenile preoccupations.

Lance’s hands curled around his neck, and he pulled Keith forward, off balance. Keith caught his wrist and his waist but let it happen, drunk and baffled by the sensation and the dangled offer that _Lance wanted this too_. Couldn’t be true. Couldn’t be. Lance didn’t even like him. 

Too much of Keith’s brain was willingly being directed towards the feeling of Lance’s teeth grazing his lip and his thumb dusting Keith’s jaw to pay much heed to the part which shouted _“not the time or place moron”_.

He tipped off his knee and fell on Lance, who seemed distinctly more pleased by this outcome than he probably should have been.

Their breastplates clunked together, and Lance’s arm slid across the dense fabric of his body suit. The floor must have been uncomfortable, but Lance merely shifted until Keith’s knees slipped between his thighs. Keith couldn’t hear anything, think anything, other than tracking the hypnotic buzz of energy wherever Lance touched him. His other arm was looped around the back of Keith’s neck, holding him close. Keith wondered distantly if he was too heavy, if he kissed poorly, if this was the adrenaline affecting Lance.

What if this wasn’t even really Lance???

Somehow that very unnerving thought still couldn’t persuade him to pull away from Lance’s mouth.

Lance had just flicked his nose up slightly, pressing into Keith’s cheek, when there was a bang and a coarse grating sound. The ground shuddered and there was a shift in gravitational pressure, making Keith feel faintly like he was floating for a few tics before full weight surged back through his limbs.

‘The hell was that?’ Lance mumbled breathlessly next to his ear, and Keith threw his gaze around as the circle of light started to slide sideways.

‘Shit-’

His helmet was following the changing gradient of the floor, gradually edging down the length of his leg. He snatched it with one hand, and reluctantly straightened into a crouch. Lance sat up next to him, grabbing his own helmet.

Keith was slow to recall the spiderwebbed cracks, and he lunged for it. Lance sprang back with an expression of sheer indignation.

‘It’s. _Mine_. Jackass.’

Keith spared a second’s appreciation for how quickly Lance could bounce back from intimacy (Keith still felt like he was wading through a brain-fog to make simple observations) before the floor groaned again and they both started sliding sideways. Keith steadied himself with a leg and peered into the dark, trying to identify if the floor was collapsing or if the whole ship was splitting apart. Something snagged his arm, and Lance’s hands covered his own, guiding the helmet up to his head.

‘We gotta go, man.’

He wasn’t sure he could stand. He wasn’t sure that he knew how to get out.

Lance was on his feet now, one leg bent to account for the slope of the floor. He pulled Keith’s arms to get him to stand up.

‘Comms are still out.’ He noted grimly. ‘We’ll have to find the others some other way.’

Both of them stared anxiously at the tentacle inhabited area of the floor between them and the door. ‘Maybe we should go round.’

‘Hasn’t it… Technically… hasn’t it already eaten?’ Lance proposed nervously. He had his bayard in one hand, and the other was curled around Keith’s upper arm. It took the latter a moment to register this, and when he did, most of his problem-solving capacity deteriorated.

‘Uh. Yeah. What if it’s just killing anything that moves?’

‘Oh. Christ.’

They edged towards one of the walls, inexorably slowed down by cautious sweeps of the floor and trying not to slip and tumble all the way back to the opposite side of the room. Neither of them said anything, but Lance’s fingers repeatedly brushed across Keith’s shoulder, checking he was only a step away.

Keith was straining his brain sifting through all of his recent interactions with Lance, trying to figure out what was happening. He knew… He knew he hadn’t spent a lot of time questioning why Lance disliked him so much. He’d spent more time wondering increasingly fervently why Lance had supported him as leader, in spite of that. He’d spent too much time wondering how Lance could so shamelessly express himself, involve himself, befriend others, pick fights and feel things without seeming like he was walking the razorblade’s edge of self-control and directionless anger that Keith was.

Keith could barely fathom where along the way Lance had transitioned from despising him to trusting him… let alone from trusting him to willingly _kissing_ him.

Unless he thought they were both about to die and Keith was the only one around to make out with… but that seemed like a meagre motivation even for Lance’s singleminded sensibilities.

They reached the wall. Lance put a gloved hand against the rough surface carefully, as though he was afraid it might tumble down at any second, and Keith led the way forwards, sword delicately perusing the shadows in from of them. He could hear the low crackle of static in his ear, and nothing else. Possibly something in the hull was disrupting radio frequencies, but surely they would have discovered that earlier. He hoped Allura had made it to Shiro. He hoped Hunk and Pidge were safe. He hoped that the first thing they did was get themselves safely back to their lions.

He hoped he hadn’t ruined everything by being impulsive.

He loved the rush of it, no lies. Every time he went with his instincts, there was nothing but elation and satisfaction for at least the first few minutes. It was only later when the recriminations started to seep in that he would figure out (or more likely, be told) exactly how badly he’d screwed up. It didn’t seem like being kissed back was much of a recrimination, but it also felt unpredictable and dangerous. Keith wasn’t exactly the best at inviting other people into his space, and the premise of having someone invite themselves in and then stick around was baffling. It had been unbelievable enough with Shiro.

Keith saw the wall a few metres ahead of him, and turned to check on Lance.

His face was barely visible through the helmet, but unless Keith was mistaken he was scowling at the gradient of the floor.

‘Right. So. Slippery slide of potential death, anyone?’ He did not sound enthused. Keith smirked.

‘I’ll go first.’ He straightened slightly and felt gravity tugging the toe of his boot forwards. ‘Show you how it’s done.’

‘Pffft.’ Lance copied him immediately.

It was harder going down the slope than up it. Keith relied on his boots to hold him steady for the most part. The gravity generators still seemed to be adjusting themselves, and every now and again Keith felt the angle change a little more. He had good balance, one of many bonuses from countless hours of training. A low centre of gravity and a keen awareness of his own frame helped.

He couldn’t see the door yet. He couldn’t see anything except for the wall on one side and the floor gently disappearing into the gloom. He could hear Lance hesitantly edging alongside him, one hand on the wall. He’d put his bayard away to use his other arm for balance.

 _There_. The door was just ahead, metal warped and jutting into the room where the spider had smashed through it. Keith was impressed. He’d expected the damn thing would have pushed it open, but it had obviously preferred to obliterate the whole thing.

Only a few feet now. Keith felt his heels lift slightly as the ship rocked, and they slammed back down. There was a scraping noise - for a moment Keith thought it was from the doorway - and Lance swore.

A few inches taller, lanky and loose-limbed, Lance slipped and fell like a baby giraffe. Keith heard the clatter and didn’t process it fast enough, and something slammed into the back of his ankles, kicking his feet completely off the floor. Lance shouted something, but Keith’s back hit the ground and he felt himself skidding downwards, unbalanced and unable to get his boots against the floor. Lance must have gotten a grip on something, because the doorway flashed past, and Keith couldn’t see or hear Lance anymore. He slammed his free hand down, felt the metal hissing away underneath him, and tried to force his heels to catch on something. He was too far away from the wall. He was going to slide the length of the room, unless he hit something.

He almost got his feet flat and then he was tumbling into space, boots, ankles, calves first, knees, thighs. As his backside fell he realised he was sliding into a hole, and tried to roll over to catch the edge…

He couldn’t turn fast enough, and then he was falling and flailing, and then he hit a hard surface and broke straight through. _Water_. Shit. _Shit_. _Monster_.

He still had his sword out. He could breathe and his helmet was casting light into the murky green-grey world around him. He realised, with a dull thump of dread, that he didn’t know which direction was up and which was down. He flicked his head, searching through the water, but there was nothing around him.

Abruptly, something came shooting through the water next to him, and he instinctively kicked away, before splintered light hit his helmet and he realised it was Lance. _Lance_. He must have followed Keith into the hole. It took him a few moments to get his bearings, and then he must have picked Keith out through the mire and started to swim towards him.

Keith knew their jetpacks would work underwater, thank Christ, because swimming wasn’t one of his talents, but Lance didn’t have that problem. He was suddenly right next to Keith, and pulling at his arm. Keith could see his mouth moving, and hear some muffled sounds, but he couldn’t understand him. Lance’s face was grey under the water. He looked about as anxious as Keith felt.

Keith motioned upwards, but Lance shook his head and pointed in the opposite direction. He said something else, and Keith shook his head uncertainly, following it with a quick nod. He didn’t know what Lance had planned, but he trusted it. There was no way they were getting out the way they came in.

Lance smoothly curved forwards in the water and started to swim down. Keith tried to follow him, with a fairly stunted rendition of a breaststroke. He couldn’t bring himself to deactivate his bayard. He could see Lance, then just his legs, then just his boots… and then he was gone, the light slowly vanishing into the depths.

Keith kept going, even as his chest tightened. Whatever they were in, a tank or a pool, it was deep. There was nothing around him to use as a guide. What if he was swimming in the wrong direction? He tried to take a steadying breath.

Finally, there was a flicker of something in front of him… light. White and blue. Thank God.

He was basking in the relief flooding his chest, when he felt the first burst of pressure hit his back. The light in front of him swung from left to right and back again violently. He nearly let go of the bayard, just so he could get to Lance. Desperation was crawling up his spine. He knew the damn thing was coming for them.

Something heavy struck his back, but he wasn’t knocked through the water as he expected. He couldn’t move his arm, couldn’t swing the sword. He tried to summon the bayard across to his other hand, but something was sliding across his chest, winding around his shoulders. He could feel it under his arms, thick and coiling.

‘LANCE!’ He thought he was seeing Lance’s helmet before he lost sight of him. He didn’t know if he should shout at him to get out or beg him to help, but adrenaline was coursing through his bloodstream and making him panic.

He could feel it dragging him backwards, and the tentacle tightening around his chest. It was difficult to breathe, then painful, then impossible. His arm felt like it was breaking.

His chest was burning. Something loomed out of the darkness towards him, huge, sprouting tree-limb tentacles from nearly every surface. Keith could just see the eye, round and sunken and glistening. It was yellow on black, with what looked like a double pupil under a thick veneer of translucent eyeball.

White lights blossomed across Keith’s vision, making the gloomy water sparkle. The eye twitched and flicked side-to-side frantically, the water churned with tentacles, and everything went dim.

It took a while for Keith to get his breath back, for his head to stop feeling full of thick cotton and pulses of pain, for him to recognise the movement of the tentacle was Lance pulling it off him. The helmet light was too bright, and he couldn’t hear anything except for the swirling water. He couldn’t feel the bayard in his hand… maybe he’d dropped it.

Lance started pulling him, directionless but forceful. Keith didn’t know what he was doing.

Abruptly, everything went sideways.

Quite literally, Keith thought everything was going sideways. He sensed that things were moving, but he couldn’t tell if they’d been swiped by the monster or if he was imagining things.

The movement sped up. Lance was holding onto him so tightly it hurt, but it would have been from the inevitable bruises left by the tentacle.

And then the ship threw them out into space.

Keith had a moment to register the water around them vaporising like some kind of magic trick. He and Lance were twisting through the blank darkness, and he wondered if he was going to throw up. He suspected probably not - he had a stomach of iron - but he couldn’t help but feel breathless and dizzy. He distantly recognised that they should try and stop spiralling through empty space, but he couldn’t muster the energy to act. Maybe they’d drift forever. Maybe Lance had been right for thinking they were going to die.

Keith hit something solid and Lance crashed onto him, and the darkness slowly resolved itself into metal shapes and dim lights.

He went still, absorbing the impact and registering the slow return of sensation to his body. His chest hurt, his arm hurt, and his head hurt. He was lightheaded and woozy, and wanted to sleep, but when Lance shifted he became acutely aware of the way they were tangled together and Lance’s weight was pinning him down. After a moment Lance struggled to his knees, one either side of Keith’s waist, and pulled off his helmet. Keith distractedly noted the way curls fell fluffily over wide concerned eyes, then he got a gloved hand under Keith’s neck and helped him sit up.

‘Jeez, Keith, are you okay?’

Keith tried to answer but failed to produce anything more than a soft groan.

‘Shit.’ Lance pulled off Keith’s helmet gingerly and laid it on the floor, and Keith realised sharply how close they were. He could feel one of Lance’s knees against his spine, keeping him upright, and his legs were draped over the other. He was slumped into Lance’s shoulder, and it felt strangely familiar and comfortable, despite the pain.

He noticed the deactivated bayard on the floor a moment before he realised they were in the mouth of the Red Lion. Lance had grabbed his sword and called the Red Lion to get them. He’d done it. He’d rescued them both.

He cut his eyes sideways to Lance, who was inspecting Keith’s neck with fervent concern.

’Nice save, Sharpshooter.’ He forced out, lungs complaining with every breath. ‘Guess she was within earshot after all.’

Lance studiously stared at his shoulder, blush creeping across his cheekbones. ‘Ah… yeah… guess so.’

He was so close. Keith had to take a moment to assess the feeling of his stomach climbing into his throat. Lance’s hair was sticking out in every direction, and there was dried blood down the side of his face, but his eyebrows were furrowed delicately as he focused on the state of Keith’s chest plate. His lips parted slightly in concentration, and Keith found his gaze unwittingly drawn to Lance’s mouth.

He’d kissed Lance. And Lance had kissed him back. And then he’d nearly died. And Lance had saved him.

Today was turning out to be a lot more exciting than Keith had predicted.

Lance lifted his eyes, expression complicated and questioning. ‘How do you feel?’ They were dark and round in the jaw-lights, the colour of an ocean floor.

Keith felt breathless, but he was no longer sure if it was the bruising or Lance’s fingers curved round the back of his neck.

‘Battle a galactic force of evil and survive, but nearly get squeezed to death by giant calamari…’ He frowned, rubbing his ribs under the armour hesitantly. ‘… I feel about as badass as a slice of lemon, to be honest.’

Lance laughed. Keith returned a tentative smile, admiring his brilliant flash of teeth and the wide, easy grin.

‘Maybe we could recruit it for our side.’ Lance remarked cheerfully, before shooting an abruptly disappointed look to the side. ‘If, you know, I hadn’t just ejected it into deep space.’

‘Shame. I would have liked to have seen Hunk’s take on space-seafood.’

Lance’s smile returned, soft-edged and dreamy. ‘Squid rings.’

Keith knew they needed to contact the others, find them and extract them wherever possible, but he desperately wanted to stay wrapped up in this moment a little longer. Lance was so… calm. He was closer to being that reassuring, compassionate version of himself from the Unspeakable Day than he’d been all week.

Lance’s energetic moods tended to alarm Keith, mostly because he couldn’t keep up with him, partially because he was usually going to be insulted several times before he had an opportunity to respond. He had to admit they held a fascination for him… Keith’s energy came and went in short, sharp, typically aggressive bursts. Lance could be energetic for days and days before he would have a quiet, introspective moment. Keith wondered how it felt.

He opened his mouth to say _“We should find the others.”_

‘How’s your head?’ He asked instead.

Lance blushed again and lifted a hand self-consciously. ‘Feels like I’m growing a tennis ball out of my forehead.’

‘Really?’ Keith found himself reaching out to adjust the angle of Lance’s chin, and suppressed the urge to shiver as Lance allowed it. He could see the fine, darkish cut clearly enough, but it was harder to pick the edges of an impressive swelling bruise.

‘It’s really more of a golf ball.’ He observed, and Lance grimaced. ‘We should- uh-’

He was going to suggest returning to Coran for a check-up, but his previous concern reoccurred and he felt a little bubble of guilt rise into his throat.

‘Yeah.’ Lance agreed softly. ‘We should go.’

Neither of them moved. Lance was watching him, attentive to any signal, and Keith didn’t know what to do.

He could feel Lance’s limbs and hands and stare. He wanted to believe that Lance was offering him something he’d never considered possible, but it seemed too good to be true. Maybe Lance thought he was suffering some sort of nervous break, and he was just taking care of him again. Maybe he _was_ suffering some sort of nervous break. Things hadn’t been the same after that parasite. He’d slept and trained and eaten and trained and slept and he’d never quite managed to shake the thought of Lance’s warm hands on his skin and in his hair and the sound of his voice gently grounding him through the pain.

Remembering made his chest a cavity filled with butterflies, or moths, or other obnoxiously loud-winged insects.

Lance was waiting, waiting… Keith frowned and lifted his fingers back to Lance’s chin.

When they kissed, Keith felt it humming through the fibres of his being. It was like completing a circuit, between the two of them and Red. Keith could feel Lance’s nervousness so close to the surface it feels like his own. He felt Lance’s caution and his vulnerability, and an undercurrent of awe that unbelievably seemed to revolve around Keith. He felt admiration and possessiveness and jealousy. He felt affection and anticipation and desire.

He felt everything, and from the way Lance’s arms tightened around his torso, it was clear he felt it too. 


End file.
